StartUP

What a pleasure it is to stroll here from Central Station: the sun and the breeze on your face, the young people hanging out around the library and, of course, the ships in the IJ. But best of all, grabbing a coffee at startUP before getting down to work. There’s no better start to the week than an espresso first thing on Monday morning, made precisely the way I like it, and chatting with the other regulars about the weekend.

UP and its friendly environment

The central lobby on the first floor of the UP building sets the tone. This is where you arrive if you park in the underground car park and take the lift or if you walk to the building and take the escalator. It can perhaps best be described as a cool urban entrance. The reception is also a coffee bar – StartUP – totally redefining traditional ideas about how a reception area should look.

“Wherever you are in the building, you have a ringside view of the floating villages as they set out carrying thousands of passengers on the trip of a lifetime.”

SuprisingUP

“It is a delight to walk alongside one of those cruise ships. It often gives me my best ideas. No two days are the same working in UP. For example, it is easy to fall into fascinating conversations with friendly people from other companies when you are having lunch at the long tables in UPtown on the 17th floor. And then run into the same people when you go for drink at one of the bars along the quay on Friday afternoon.”

Every year dozens of cruise ships moor under the gaze of UP. Around 300,000 visitors pass through the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam annually. Ships up to 340 metres long and with up to 11 or 12 decks, can moor at the quay. Just 25 kilometres from the ocean, Amsterdam is a very popular stop for cruise ships, many of them on their way to the Baltic states and Scandinavia.